Fingerboard and finishing

Here we go again. Fingerboard, neck shaping, fretting and maybe best single phase of the building process: When the finishing gets started and the beauty of the grain revealed for the first time properly. Next week will be rubbing the French Polish finish on the soundbox and peg head veneer and Tru Oil in the neck.

Making the string ramps to the slots

Tapering the fingerboard. A little temporary fence was made out of neck blanks to keep the edge true

Time to glue down the fingerboard. The little white nails slipped into 2mm holes in both ends of the neck help keep everything in place when clamping.

Pressure! Nut blank in place helps keep the scale right

Once the fingerboard is in place, it's time to cut and sand the neck blank down to same dimensions

...and when the neck is in it's target width, the frets are hammered in and filed down to the edge

When the frets are in place it's time to shape the neck and heel

Still a few strokes to go!

first wash-coat of shellac on finish-sanded surfaces. Alreary the first wiped-on coat brings out the shine in the grain of the wood very nicely!

Quite lively grain pattern in this sapele mahogany!

Heel cap is tasmanian blackwood with black-white-black maple sandwich

East Indian Rosewood back of the headstock veneer

The only inlay on the fingerboard is off-centered brass ring with Ylämaa Spectrolite gemstone insert. They are mined from the South-East Finland. The fret material is EWO Gold from LMII. Great stuff!